30 November 2015

“None are to be found more clever than Ernie,” declared an Oak Park and River Forest High School classmate of young Ernest Hemingway who apparently agreed; he used it as his senior yearbook quote. Bright and competitive, Hemingway always knew he wanted to be a writer and at 16 published his first short story, The Judgment of Manitou, in his school’s magazine, The Tabula.“Ernest Hemingway: Between
Two Wars,” an exhibit at the Morgan Library in collaboration with the John F.
Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum (which houses Hemingway’s papers),
looks at the two most productive decades in the writer's life during which he published
five novels, two works of non-fiction, and five short-story collections, honing
his craft along the way and becoming one of the most important voices in
American literature. (Full disclosure, I did my grad work on Hemingway and am a
big fan.)

Broken into six sections, the exhibit contains almost 100 items including drafts, notebooks, manuscripts, first editions, photographs, and letters from friends and fellow writers like John Dos Passos, Sylvia Beach, and John Steinbeck. There are also bull fight ticket stubs, dog tags from when Hemingway was a war correspondent for Colliers during World War II, and a painting of Hemingway by Waldo Pierce modelled after a well-know photo of Balzac.

The most interesting
section of the exhibit was the beginning where you see Hemingway emerging as a
writer. There’s the first appearance of Nick Adams in a story written on Red
Cross stationary; the passport from his early Paris days with that ridiculously
handsome photo; his first book, Three Stories & Ten Poems, published
by Robert McAlmon’s Contact Press; and a letter dated 20 March 1925 in which
Hemingway explains his artistic credo to a displeased father: "You see I'm
trying in all my stories to get the feeling of the actual life across—not to
just depict life—or criticize it—but to actually make it alive."My favourite of his novels, The
Sun Also Rises, which he wrote in just nine weeks in 1926, is represented
with numerous items like three of the seven French school notebooks in which he
wrote the first draft. As with all of Hemingway’s drafts, you see him crossing
out words and sometimes full paragraphs, always paring down. On the back cover
of the third notebook, there’s a running list of how many words he had written
each day before he had his first whiskey and soda.Also
fascinating are the items related to F. Scott Fitzgerald. Hemingway, who had
met Fitzgerald at the Dingo Bar, showed his manuscript of The Sun Also Rises
to the already successful author. Fitzgerald turned out to be a good critic, suggesting that
Hemingway cut the first two chapters, thus beginning the novel with the story of Robert Cohn.
The first two pages of those excised chapters are on display and show that
Fitzgerald was right.

First page of autograph manuscript of A Farewell to Arms, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1929.

By 1929, Hemingway had become surer of himself as a writer and when he received nine pages of notes from Fitzgerald on A Farewell to Arms (three of which are on display), he was less open to advice. Even though on one of the pages of the typescript Fitzgerald had written “This is one of the most beautiful pages in all English literature,” at the bottom of Fitzgerald’s notes is a comment by Hemingway, “Kiss my ass—EH.” He also was not a happy with the book’s copy editor, writing in the margin of one of the galley proofs, “who buggered this up like this. EH.”

Hemingway was famously thin-skinned and quick to lash out at anyone. Furious at Irwin Shaw for including a character based on Hemingway's younger brother, Leicester, in Shaw's novel The Young Lions, Hemingway's personal copy of the book shows an annotation on one page that reads, “This is the part I will break his jaw for.”

Yet Hemingway could also be kind. When a young man, Arnold Samuelson, showed up at Hemingway's home in Key West, Florida to ask him for advice on becoming a writer, Hemingway offered him a job looking after his boat and wrote up a reading list of 16 works for Samuelson to read including classics such as War and Peace, Madame Bovary, and Wuthering Heights as well as some "modern" titles, Dubliners and The Enormous Room. “Here’s a list of books any writer should have read as a part of his education,” Hemingway told Samuelson, “. . . if you haven’t read these, you just aren’t educated.”

Ernest Hemingway revising the typescript of For Whom The Bell Tolls, Sun Valley, Idaho, November 1940.

Regardless of his actions, Hemingway was thought highly of by many other writers like Dorothy Parker who remained a staunch supporter of Hemingway's even after he mocked her behind her back. On 30 November 1929, the New Yorker published a profile of Hemingway written by Parker titled “The Artist’s Reward.” Nervous about its reception, she sent him a draft to read, commenting in her cover letter, “part of the Artist’s Reward is having shit like this written about you.” And in this case, a very fine exhibit.

“Ernest Hemingway: Between Two Wars” is at the Morgan until
January 31, 2016. For more information, visit here.

26 November 2015

The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade is as much of a tradition
today as turkey and pumpkin pie. The first parade took place in 1924 with
nursery rhyme-themed floats and live animals borrowed from the Central Park Zoo. Originally
called the Macy’s Christmas Parade (it was sponsored by a department store
after all), it was renamed the Thanksgiving Day Parade in 1927. That same year some
giant balloons were added to the mix including one of the popular Felix the Cat, the first in a long line of character balloons to grace the parade (Mickey Mouse would follow in
1934). Felix’s debut went smoothly until he became entangled with some
telephone poles and caught fire.

Cats have nine lives though, and he was back the following
year. This time round, the air in the balloons was replaced with helium so they
could soar above the parade. At the end of the parade, the balloons were
released into the air; a tag sewn into each promised a $100 prize to the finder if
the balloon was returned to Macy’s. Unfortunately, the balloons burst upon
release prompting the addition of safety valves so they could deflate slowly
the next time round.

Felix continued to be featured in the parade. On November
27, 1931, the New York Times ran an
article with the headline—“Felix the Cat Soars Gayly in Broadway.” In it they said
that upon his release at the end of the parade, Felix started to float out to sea
and pilot Clarence Chamberlin grabbed him with the wing of his plane and
deposited Felix at the airfield. Yet a few days later it was reported that
Felix had floated over to New Jersey where he ran into a high voltage wire and once
again caught on fire.

Felix wasn’t the only cat to run into trouble. In 1932
another balloon cat, Tom-Kat, became entangled in the wing of a small
monoplane, almost causing it to crash (it wasn’t really the cat’s fault; the plane’s
student pilot had deliberately flown into the balloon in an attempt to capture
it). After this incident, the organizers wisely decided to stop releasing the
balloons.

In 1933, it was reported that Felix joined the parade, this
time without incident. He would continue to be a part of the parade until 1938. While another famed cat, Hello Kitty, would become part of the parade beginning in 2007, Felix will always hold the honour of being the first cat (and character balloon) of the Thanksgiving Day Parade. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

John Baxter shows why the City of Light during the 1920s was the place to be with a series of engaging stories. There’s le jazz hot, les Apaches, café life, Picasso, Hemingway and Fitzgerald, and much more. Also included are loads of photos and four walking tours so readers can visit many of the places mentioned. My only complaint is about the actual edition of the book, which reads as if it weren’t copyedited. There are a number of mistakes including the misspelling of people’s names and a wrong photo caption.The Algonquin Round Table New York: A Historical Guide—Kevin
C. Fitzpatrick
If you like New York history, writers, and artists then you’ll love this guide by Kevin C. Fitzpatrick. Filled with photos and maps, the book looks at the members of the famed Algonquin Round Table and their haunts from their homes and places of work to their favourite drinking establishments and final resting places. In addition to familiar faces like Dorothy Parker, Robert Benchley, and Alexander Woollcott, Fitzpatrick draws attention to often overlooked members of the group like Jane Grant, co-founder of the New Yorker, and art critic Murdock Pemberton who first took Woollcott and John Peter Toohey to lunch at the Algonquin Hotel, which naturally gets its own chapter. A Study in Death—Anna Lee HuberThings are starting to look up for Lady Kiera Darby with her engagement to investigator Sebastian Gage and a return to accepting painting commissions. But when the sitter for her latest portrait is found dead, Kiera suspects foul play and finds herself once again working with Gage to catch a murderer while confronting her own past. This continues to be one of my favourite historical mystery series with an appealing setting (1830s Scotland) and a likable couple with great chemistry.

Tinseltown: Murder, Morphine, and Madness at the Dawn of Hollywood—William J. Mann
The murder of director William Desmond Taylor on February 2, 1922 sent shock waves through the Hollywood community and remains unsolved to this day. William J. Mann examines the details of the case and Taylor's mysterious background while also looking at the lives of three actresses close to the director—Mabel Normand, Mary Miles Minter, and Margaret “Gibby” Gibson—as well as that of one of the most powerful men in the movies, Adolph Zukor. While Mann includes a ton of research and a fresh take on some familiar faces—including a sympathetic view of Will Hays of the infamous Hays code—I didn't agree with his final conclusions.

Suspended Sentences: Three Novellas—Patrick Modiano
This slim collection contains three novellas that all deal with the theme of disappearance: A man tries to find traces of a photographer who has drifted into obscurity; another recounts how during the war his parents sent him and his brother to live with friends who had a collection of unusual guests; and what really happened to a couple who committed suicide (or was it murder) years ago? The German Occupation of France is ever present in these tales, leaving their mark on the characters. I absolutely loved this book and cannot wait to read more by the author. His writing is superb, and I found myself thinking about the stories long after I had read the last page.

Hollywood—Gore VidalThe power of Washington, DC and the endless possibilities of Hollywood are intertwined in Gore Vidal’s novel, part of the American Chronicle series. A fictional Washington newspaper publisher who goes west to become a silent screen star and her former lover, a US Senator, mingle with the likes of William Randolph Hearst, Charlie Chaplin, and the Roosevelts. Beginning at the start of World War I and going through to the Roaring Twenties, the book touches on everything from war propaganda films to political scandals. While a bit lengthy at times, Vidal offers readers a look at how these towns' players spin the truth as only he can.

14 November 2015

Today is the birthday of one of my role
models—Louise Brooks. Born on November 14, 1906 in Cherryvale, Kansas, she
conquered New York as a teen, dancing first with the famed Denishawn Dance
Company before joining the casts of the George White Scandals and the Ziegfeld Follies.

When the movies came calling, Brooks answered although she found the whole
process rather boring. Usually cast as care-free flappers in light fare, Brooks got the chance to display some serious acting when she played a girl disguised as a boy on the run from the authorities in William Wellman’s Beggars of Life (1928).

With her stick-straight dark bob, pale
skin, and lithe figure, Brooks epitomized the new woman of the 1920s.
And she also had the flapper’s devil-may-care attitude in spades. Always a rebel,
she insisted on living life on her own terms, even when her decisions were detrimental
to herself. And so when G.W. Pabst asked Brooks to come to
Berlin to make a film, she hightailed it out of Hollywood and headed for Europe
where she made Pandora’s Box (1929), Diary of a Lost Girl (1929), and Prix
de beauté (1930). Although not a hit at the time, Pandora's Box is now considered one of the best films of German cinema.

When she returned to the States, Brooks made a few B movies
but her career was over, and she faded into obscurity. It would take a few
decades before she was rediscovered by film lovers, prompting the French
cinephile Henri Langlois to declare, "There is
no Garbo, there is no Dietrich. There is only Louise Brooks."
In her later years Brooks turned to writing, publishing a well-regarded collection
of essays, Lulu in Hollywood, in 1982
before she passed away on August 8, 1985.

I’ve long admired Brooks' talent, her
personal code, and her style (one of the reasons why I wear my hair bobbed) so
I am happy to say, Happy Birthday, Lulu!

12 November 2015

Today is Grace Kelly's birthday. Born on November 12, 1929 in Philadelphia, she modelled and acted on Broadway before getting cast in some television series, which led to the movies. During a film career that lasted only five years, she managed to snag an Oscar for best actress for The Country Girl (1954) and star in three Hitchcock films—Dial M for Murder (1954), Rear Window (1954), and To Catch a Thief (1955)—before leaving Hollywood behind for life as a real princess in Monaco. One of the biggest style icons of the 20th century, Kelly is noted for her classic, elegant look and my favourite photo of her proves that she could look stylish in anything. In 1953, Kelly sat for photographer Milton H. Greene in his New York studio for a session for Look Magazine. Kelly wears a pair of trousers and Greene's suede jacket with black heels. With her feet up on the piano, she gazes back at the camera, looking fabulous. Below are some more images from the same session but the shot above remains my favourite.

09 November 2015

A new Google Doodle debuted today of birthday girl Hedy Lamarr. What a lovely way to pay tribute to a woman who was not only one of the most beautiful women to ever grace the silver screen but who was an important inventor as well. Hedy Lamarr was born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler on November 9, 1914 in Vienna, Austria. She began working in the movies in her teens including playing a bored housewife at age 18 in the Czech film The Ecstasy (1933), which included a scandalous nude scene. That same year she married a wealthy munitions manufacturer who did business with Mussolini and had Hitler over for dinner. Four years later, Lamarr fled her husband and ended up in Paris. Later in London she met Louis B. Mayer, the head of MGM, who changed her name and brought her to Hollywood.There Lamarr made her American debut in Algiers (1938) opposite Charles Boyer. She would go on to star in a series of films with some of the screen's biggest stars like Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, James Stewart, and John Garfield. Lamarr was typecast as the beautiful seductress, often of unnamed foreign origins.

The talented Hedy Lamarr

She quickly grew bored with filmmaking and started working on inventions in her home. One evening during World War II, she met composer George Antheil and the two talked about torpedoes, something Lamarr had learned a lot about during dinner parties with her first husband (she would be married six times in total). Lamarr and Antheil were soon working on her idea that if you could learn how to make radio frequencies hop in a random pattern, you could keep the enemy from detecting and jamming frequencies used to guide torpedoes. The result of their collaboration was a frequency-hopping technology for which they received a patent in 1942. Yet their work wouldn't be used by the military until the Cuban Missile Crisis 20 years later. By that time Lamarr's acting career was over and Antheil was dead.It was only toward the end of her life that Lamarr began to get attention for her work. In 1997, when she learned she was to receive the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Pioneer Award her response was, "It's about time." She passed away on January 19, 2000.Lamarr and Antheil's invention became the basis of spread-spectrum technology, which is used today in cell phones and wireless networks. For this, we all have reason to give thanks to Hedy Lamarr.

01 November 2015

November is here, which means colder days and walks in Central Park to catch the last colours of the season, the making of large pots of soup and the release of Beaujolais nouveau, the wearing of coats and the donning of scarves and gloves. Oh, and there's that turkey holiday as well. Have a fabulous month.

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